DivinylsFan I believe the wish wasn't gated to only active sims. I've seen it in romantic contexts where my sim isn't living with the other one yet, but I've always just waited until they moved in together.
There are a lot of wishes that should probably have some kind of eligibility check but don't, for example wishing to have a pillow fight with a newborn sim. It's one of the wishes an active sim can roll upon meeting or becoming friends with another sim, and the game doesn't limit it to sims that can actually engage.
You could of course use NRaas Traveler to travel with inactive sims in the party.
